October 2, 2013

June 5, 2012

Last night for supper I made Vegetable Curry. I love spicy food but this time around I made it with a new curry blend I purchased from Penzy's Spice Company and it was HOT. Too hot for my palate and I had to consume more rice than I had planned on to keep my mouth from burning up. The rest of the family must have loved it as we didn't have any leftovers. Next time I'll make a double batch and go easier on the curry spice.

1. Preheat oven to high broil. Drain tofu and cut into 1 inch cubes. Place on a baking sheet covered with non-stick spray (I always put aluminum foil down for easy clean up). Spray with Bragg Liquid Aminos. Broil cubes for 10 minutes. Turn over tofu cubes and spritz with Bragg Liquid Aminos again. Broil for another 10 minutes, until browned on both sides.2. Place rice noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot water. Let sit for 20 minutes.3. Heat the vegetable stock (or other liquid you chose) in a wok or large nonstick skillet. Add in the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add in the onions, noodles, broccoli, tofu and sprouts, one at a time - stirring in between each one. Add in the chili powder, tamari and lemon juice. Stir to combine and remove from heat. Garnish with cilantro and peanuts.Serves 4.

I am trying to eat more and more vegetables and surprisingly even my 17 year old son has accepted the non-meat meals. When I asked him if he liked this dish, he replied with a grin and said I'm going in for seconds. I take that as a yes.

I have this amazing food processor made by The Food Network and it sliced all of my vegetables (except the tomatoes) for me, including the carrots. Then I threw them all in a pan and water sauteed them until tender (first 6 ingredients). Add in the diced tomatoes, oregano, juice, pasta sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve over the spaghetti. Garnish the top with the ground cashews.

This recipe comes from the Engine 2 Diet book and was a HUGE hit with my husband. After not eating anything sweet for three weeks the BBQ sauce was a bit sweet for me. I think next time I'll add a little more tomato paste or try and find a BBQ sauce that isn't so sweet. It's really hard to find a sauce that doesn't have sugar as one of the first three ingredients. If anyone knows of any, can you please leave a comment with the brand name and where you found it?

Preheat oven to 425°. Mix the tomato paste, barbecue sauce and oregano together in a bowl. Generously spread the sauce on the crusts and layer with the vegetables and pineapple. Top with the cashews. Bake on a sprayed cooking sheet or pizza stone for 15 minutes.
My son added some pre-cooked chicken to his pizza but my husband and I kept ours animal protein free (the Eat to Live way).

Spray a coat of olive oil cooking spray over the vegetables. Sprinkle with chopped thyme, salt and pepper.

Bake in pre-heated 450 degree oven for 20 minutes or until nicely roasted.

While the vegetables were roasting, I sprinkled my sirloin steak with Afghani Spice from Teeny Tiny Spice Co. of Vermont.

Cook steak on a grill pan if you're cooking on your stove. I love the grill lines.

Roasted Vegetables

Let your steak "set" for at least 5 minutes before slicing.

Slice your steak on an angle, against the grain.

Enjoy!

I really love my vegetables roasted. I make this a lot and sometimes add eggplant, tomatoes and green beans to the mix. I overcooked my steak a bit. I usually like it medium to medium well but my brother-in-law stopped by while I was cooking and I was distracted.

October 30, 2011

Ilove cooking. I love taking a variety of ingredients, mixing them together and seeing what I get. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. One of my biggest passions has been cooking with spices. This year I started hitting up the local Farmer's Markets and it was there that I stumbled upon a company called Teeny Tiny Spice Co. of Vermont. They make hard to find spice blends.

Six O'Clock hit tonight and I didn't know what I was going to cook for supper. Sundays in our household are Football Sundays, so I don't have much time to whip something up and run back to the TV before half-time is over. I looked in my refrigerator and spotted a package of ground turkey. I decided to whip up some chili, but what kind? I remembered that Teeny Tiny Spice Co of Vermont had sent me a few containers of their spices for me to review. What's not better than Chili and Football? I didn't have any kidney beans on hand and I knew I needed to "beef" up the chili somehow. I decided to pour it over some spaghetti. This was my first time eating chili with spaghetti and it was delicious. The whole recipe only took me 30 minutes from start to finish.